


Some Assembly Required

by yugto



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: AO3 1 Million, Gen, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yugto/pseuds/yugto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, rebuilding is the easy part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Assembly Required

**Author's Note:**

> Written on the spur of the moment for AO3's 1 Million Celebration. I saw The LEGO Movie a little over a week ago, and it basically took over my life, bye. 
> 
> Props to you if you recognize all the series I referenced. There are quite a few. I was buried so deep in LEGO fandom when I was a kid, you don't even know.

The walls between the worlds are coming down, and Emmet is learning all sorts of new things! There are more worlds than he could ever have dreamed of; ninjas, battle machines, superheroes, undersea treasure hunters, and valiant explorers are all appearing from the outer reaches of their universe to aid in the reconstruction of Bricksburg.

A girl from the ninja world—Ninjago, was it?—explains to him that Lord Business's influence was lower in the outer regions. "Most of his power was concentrated on the city," she says. "We heard rumors that he was going to start moving outwards next, but he wanted to make sure everything was perfectly managed in the city and its surrounding areas before he moved on."

As a result of this salutary neglect, some people from the ignored regions still have a lot of imagination! They can work. _Without instructions_. And they're not even Master Builders!!! Emmet's never seen anything so awesome in his _life_ , unless you count that one time his Master Builder vision activated, because that was _pretty darn awesome_.

Anyway! The sort-of new but actually just ignored guys are helping the citizens of Bricksburg adjust to working without instructions. Oh, they're not becoming Cloudcuckooland here or anything, no, sir! Instructions are still important, if they want everything to work out. It's just that, since they defeated the micromanagers and President Business figured out that perfection wasn't necessarily the best idea, the citizens of Bricksburg realized that imagination and working without instructions are two handy skills to have.

But they don't really know how to use their imaginations! They've been using manuals to live day-to-day, for Pete's sake. They don't know how to think outside the box. Their fight against the micromanagers was the first step, sure, but they need some fresh ideas.

Enter the people from other worlds. There are so many that Emmet never even thought could exist! And they all have such _cool_ ideas. Now, when he's walking down the street, he hears things like "Okay, but what if you added, like, a _proton cannon_ here," and "All right, but what if we modified this so it could turn _invisible_ " and that is so totally awesome, Emmet doesn't even have the words to describe it. Everyone is working together! _Everything is awesome!!!_

He voices these thoughts to Lucy every once in a while, who laughs and pats him on the head fondly. He's sure she thinks they're awesome too, though! She's just too cool to say it out loud, is all.

With the new visitors' help, the citizens are really coming along nicely. Old friends are helping out, too: Benny's got them learning to build spaceships out of all sorts of parts, and even though the colors and parts don't always completely match, the finished creations stay together a lot better than their failed submarine did. Half of the population of Bricksburg is whizzing around on tiny spaceships. Benny is ecstatic.

The rest of the Master Builders are trying to do their part. Having been imprisoned in the Octan Tower for years, some of them are so used to dictating the instructions that working with other people is almost completely foreign to them. It's a learning process for everyone, Emmet guesses.

But there comes a day where all the citizens of Bricksburg have learned all they can about imagination, and the majority of the people from the outer realms decide to return to their own places.

"It's not that we don't like being here, because we honestly do," one girl riding in a giant battle machine tells Emmet, "but you've learned all you can from us, really! And even if Lord Business is on our side now, there are still enemies within our worlds, and we've got to protect our own people. We've already been gone for far too long, so we've really got to go, but we'll see you around, all right? Come and visit!"

The city is by no means empty after the visitors leave, but it feels a lot quieter. However, although they're gone, traces of them linger: half the spaceships in town sport Stark Industries camouflage panels; neat, unique transforming vehicles are filling the streets; and proton cannons dot the perimeter of the city, guarding against potential attacks from baddies from other worlds.

(It's fair to note, though, that the proton cannons are only used for destroying the plague-ridden rats that venture forth from Middle Zealand.)

Armed with imagination, the citizens go beyond simply building. New songs slowly make their way onto the radio; now, when Emmet turns on the radio, he's no longer inundated with "Everything Is Awesome!!!". Acoustic guitar songs, chamber pop, and even Batman's original music invade the airwaves. Emmet misses "Everything Is Awesome!!!", but he admits it's nice to hear something new for a change. 

So life goes on. Things settle into some semblance of a routine, but it's definitely more lively than before. Before, everything was exactly the same day-to-day; now, although Emmet usually knows what to expect, there's always something little that surprises him every day.

And then... everything changes when the Duplo monsters appear.

"We are from the planet Duplo, and we are here to destroy you," says the monster. Its bricks are _huge_ ; one stud is the size of a two-by-two, and it's easily three times Emmet's size. Behind it, a few more monsters hiss menacingly.

Emmet's terrified.

"Oh, man," he mumbles. Behind him, he hears the familiar click-clack of someone assembling something. A lot of someones, actually. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of someone slapping the last brick onto a missile launcher, and his panicked expression slowly turns to a confident grin.

"Let's do this!" Lucy cries, and the citizens of Bricksburg charge forth, armed with everything from proton cannons to battering rams, all built by their own hands.

"They're doin' really well," Batman says gruffly, as Emmet surveys the fray for a minute.

"Yeah," Emmet smiles. "Vitruvius would be proud."


End file.
